AMERICA
seems to be having its cause célèbre of anti-Semitism in the case of Leo M. Frank, of Atlanta,
which, according to one authority, ranks second in international
importance
with the "blood-ritual" murder trial of Mendel Beilis in Russia.
And, as
in the Dreyfus affair in France,
we read that Jews in all parts of the world have come to the aid of
Frank with
published protests and funds contributed for his defense. "Sad to say,
the
old, and, as we thought, outworn, religious prejudice against the Jew
was
employed in full force, and it was determined to hang the Jew," remarks
the New Orleans Jewish Ledger, which
adds: "The murder was a most atrocious one, yet the trial of Frank
exceeded it in atrocity." "No one can deny that under the
circumstances the execution of Frank would be a travesty of justice,"
declares the San Francisco Emanu-el, which
regards the condemned man as "the victim of mob spirit."
And the New YorkAmerican Hebrew asserts that
the case" affects the life and liberty of every American citizen."

Three times sentenced
to
death for the murder in April, 1913, of Mary Phagan, a
fourteen-year-old girl
employed in the pencil factory of which he was superintendent, Frank
now
secures what practically amounts to a stay of execution, press reports
tell us,
until such time as the United States Supreme Court shall have reviewed
the
entire record of the trial and decided "whether a constitutional right
was
denied to him in his being excluded from the trial court-room when the
jury
returned its verdict of guilty." This is a point that has never been
determined by the Supreme Court; and in applauding its action in
granting
Frank's appeal for a writ of habeas corpus, the New York World remarks
that" where the defendant in a murder
trial is excluded from court because of threats of mob violence when
the jury
returns its verdict, that is more the due process of lynch law than the
due
process of statute law." The Brooklyn Eagle says that "those who believe Frank to be a
murderer should unite with those who believe him to be a helpless
victim of
race prejudice in approval of this court action," because "too many
protections can not well be placed around the infliction of the death
penalty
where race and religious questions may have developed prejudice." Among
many other journals which approve the Supreme Court's course are the
Newark News, the New York Morning
Telegraph, and the San Diego Union, which tells us that there is a very prevalent
belief throughout the country that Frank did not have a fair trial,
while we
read in the Syracuse Herald that-

"Tho
the fate of only one man is involved in the celebrated legal conflict,
just and
upright citizens who have studied this strange chapter of criminal
history must
recognize that when the rights of an individual are trampled upon in
such a
way, the rights of all would be potentially imperiled if the vicious
precedent
in his case were allowed to prevail……..

"He
was convicted chiefly on the testimony of an alleged negro accomplice,
who afterward
recanted. The recantation, of course, did not appear in the trial; but
what did
appear there, in a sinister form, was an outbreak of mob fury against
Frank
which led his trial lawyers, who were justified in feeling that his
life was in
danger, to keep him away from the courtroom when the jury brought in
its
verdict. It was one of the most outrageous exhibitions on record of
mobocracy
invading the sacred precincts of justice."

"If the circumstances
under which Frank was convicted of murder," observes the New York Herald,
"were such as to render a fair trial
impossible, it is of far more importance to the State than to Frank
that a new
trial should be granted," while the Brooklyn Times declares flatly that "Frank was adjudged
guilty not because he was guilty, but because of unreasoning race
prejudice
against him."

A "crime wave"
had been sweeping over the city, it appears, and a writer in the
Chicago Tribune, who professes to render
"an unbiased
statement of the case," remarks that, as usually happens at such a
time,
the hue and cry was raised in Atlanta "that some one be punished as a
lesson to others and in expiation of the crimes that had been
committed."
Both the people and the mayor declared the police to be incompetent,
and"
the police realized that if they meant to retain their jobs and the
confidence
of the people they must secure a conviction at the next opportunity
that
presented itself." The chance came, continues this writer, and, calling
our attention to the prejudice in Atlanta
against the Jews, he adds:

"Frank, part
owner of
the pencil-factory and its superintendent, was a Jew-almost enough, in
the
minds of some of Atlanta's
voters, to indict him without further evidence on the charge of the
murder of
the girl he had employed. A Jew was a prize subject for the accusation
of the
crime-much better than a Negro. In the South they do not hate the
Negroes. They
don't respect them, they deny rights to, disfranchise, lynch, and pity
them;
but they do not hate them. To hate them would mean some acknowledgment
of the
equality of white and blackamoor, which no true Southerner will admit."

We read further that
the
Negro’s "chances for arousing the hatred of the white by commercial
jealousy are automatically obviated because he is not allowed to have
any
business except that of being a servant." On the other hand,

"The Jew is an
aggressive business competitor and compels outward respect at least
because of
his ability to secure trade, and thereby insure himself and family a
good
living. He, mayhap, owns a motor-car, and causes competitors to meet
his
prices. He contributes to the local charities and relieves the
suffering of the
poor, Jew and Gentile alike. So he is thoroughly hated, from economic jealousy as well as from
religious prejudice, the one
intensifying the other."

On the other hand, Mr.
Clark Howell, editor of the Atlanta Constitution,
is "very clear in the opinion
that those who are undertaking to attribute developments in the Frank
case to
local hostility against the Hebrews are doing violent injustice to
Atlanta and
still greater injustice to the very large element of our Jewish
population
numbered among' our most prominent, enterprising, and highly esteemed
citizens." He goes on to say:

"Without regard
to
the guilt or the innocence of Frank, not one thing that has happened
in, the
developments of his case would have been otherwise had Frank been
anything else
than a Jew. Whatever hostility there was against him as a defendant was
not
because, but in spite of the fact, that he was a Jew, for there never
has been
a time since Atlanta was a city when its Jewish population has not
figured
prominently in all matters of business development and civic
enterprises with
the most cordial and friendly cooperation on the part of their
associates of
other faiths."